High Performance Cluster Computing

Hey folks a very good morning to you. It really sounds stupid when I say good morning while it’s midnight but for a night creature like me it’s a morning rather than midnight and by the time you guys will check this article out it would be morning for you.So I think the equation is equally balanced.All right let’s come to the point and today’s topic is Creation of a Cluster of computers. What Wikipedia says about Clustering is that a computer cluster consists of a set of loosely connected computers that work together so that in many respects they can be viewed as a single system.

Cluster computing is related to parallel computing which reminds me that Parallel Computing was a subject in the 7th semester and don’t ask how poorly I have written my exam paper.Actually I am too bad in theoretical knowledge and subjects so what if we do something practical right now. Well guys get ready for creating a Cluster of computers in 10 minutes.

Before we begin get PelicanHPC from this download link.Choose the version which suits you as I downloaded v2.2+eps-i386 version.This is an iso file which you need to burn in a CD. You can say that why wasting time on burning a CD(and the CD of course).Let’s use VMWare.But sorry guys you may have problems running this iso in VMWare just like I had so it would be better if you burn it to a CD.

Now we will require at least two computers.So borrow one from your friend just like me and let the real fun begin.Now following are the steps which we’ll have to perform-

Get an Ethernet cable or LAN wire and connect both the system.

Set the boot device to Network for the first system .

Now boot the second system with the Live CD we have created.This will be our front node so use the system with better processing power.My friend’s processor was Core i3 while mine is just a Core2 Duo.So I used the system with i3 processor as my front node.

Now when the CD boots select Live from the menu to start the booting process.At the time of booting all you need is to follow some instructions displayed and I know you are smart enough to do that.

During the booting process you’ll be asked to change password. So just do it and this password will be used to log-in on every node.

Once you have entered your password log-in with username user and password will be what you have set earlier.

After logging in type pelican_setup command to start the process of Cluster formation.Again there are some clearly understandable instructions which you need to follow.

During the Cluster creating process whenever it says Go turn on your computer nodes that’s the time to boot the first system whose boot device is set to Network.So let it boot completely and log-in with the same user-name and password as we did earlier.

That’s all you need to do to create a cluster.The cluster speed of my cluster of two systems was 1585 MFLOPS with a calculation time of 1.14 seconds.

During the cluster creation process it is possible that cluster couldn’t be created because of many reasons like loose cable connection.So don’t worry and just type exit to come out of the shell and re-run the pelican_setup command and it will be done.

That’s all for today guys.I hope you have learned something new and interesting today.